


Fair and Just Punishment

by dofensphinx



Series: Jazz Phantom [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: AU, Gen, Ghost Backstory, Jazz Phantom, sibling swap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 05:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3597258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dofensphinx/pseuds/dofensphinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jazz learns that maybe the ghosts have a reason for running away from the Ghost Zone so often and that there’s a lot more to ghost fighting then just zapping things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fair and Just Punishment

“I am the Box Ghost! Beware!” He held the box above his head, staring threateningly down at who had come into his warehouse, “My boxes are full of doom!”

Jazz gave him a look, clearly not impressed with whatever he was doing, “It’s me Boxy, I came to see how you were doing”, she crossed her arms behind her back, floating a few inches off the ground.

“Oh, sorry Miss Phantom”, he dropped his box to ground, crossing his legs so that he was sitting and floating, “I didn’t know that it was you. I thought it was one of those high school kids”

She crossed her own legs, floating in front of him so they were sitting face to face, “Have they been bothering you a lot lately? Maybe we should step up the hauntings or something”

The Box Ghost had been the first ghost she ever faced, a man who was obsessed with boxes to the point of using them as his weapons and stealing them as well. At first all she could manage to get out of him was a lot of screaming about how she was suppose to scared of him and so on. It took a lot for him to calm down so that they could talk. Just asking why she was supposed to be so scared of him.

Once they started talking, it was easy enough to learn who he had been before his death. A dock worker, just trying to support his family, he had been crushed to death by boxes. Now that he was a ghost, he could control the very thing that had caused his death, he was...just so excited that he couldn’t control himself. 

His desire to be feared was fed straight from that, his death having been caused by a group of mob guys who were attempting to scare his boss. He hadn’t been able to scare anyone in his life, so he just wanted to try in his death.

Not that...he did very well but he was trying at the very least. 

She allowed him to stay in the warehouse, it was technically abandoned only being used for some of her classmates to drink. The Box Ghost was nice, when he remembered that he didn’t have to scare her. He didn’t have the best or strongest ghost powers, but he could teach her things that no one else could or would.

She liked him. Having a friend that truly understood the ghost half of her was pleasant. 

“I got this for you”, Jazz handed him a purple hat box, a yellow ribbon tied around it, “I know you were talking about more interesting boxes then just the packing ones in here”, she opened it, showing the silk lined inside, “It’s from an antique store”

The Box Ghost took it in his hands, sticking his hand in before disappearing inside. The box kept floating, a blue glow around it. After a few moments his head reappeared, a large smile on his face, “Its beautiful Miss Phantom!”

Jazz waved her hand, her cheeks a slight shade of blue now, “It’s no big deal. And I keep telling you, you can just call me Jazz. Everyone else does. Well...I guess they call me Ghost girl, Welp, annoyance...Just about everything but Jazz…”

“InvisiBelle!” he added, shrinking back into the box when Jazz gave him a look that could have killed him all over again, her eyes glowing blue, “Sorry…”

“Look, the point is there’s no reason to be so formal with me. I’m just...I’m no one special right?”

The Box Ghost floated out of his box, pressing it to his chest, “You’re the halfa though! And that makes you important...and you didn’t put me back in the Ghost Zone and if you do that, Walker’ll get me”

She twisted a strand of floating hair around her finger, considering something for a moment before she spoke, “You’ve mentioned Walker before, who is he?”

He froze, even the slight bobbing of his floating figure seemed to stop. The only movement was of his eyes, shifting from side to side as he attempted to find a way to escape, “You don’t need to know about him Jazz. You’ll just get hurt, he stays on his side of the line”

Jazz folded her hands in her lap, tapping her fingers on her palm, “You have to tell me, if this involves the ghosts. I mean I’m the one who's suppose to be protecting them and the ghost zone in general”

She got the feeling that if the Box Ghost was this afraid, he was willing to give her just about any gossip about the Ghost Zone so for him to be all of a sudden concerned about not telling her something. She reached towards him, pulling at his box with a look. She knew plenty of other ghosts, Sam had files of them saved encase something ever happened but the name Walker was a new one.

“He’s the Warden”, the Box Ghost said finally, pulling on his hat so that he didn’t have to look at Jazz, “He enforces all of the rules in the Ghost Zone and if you disobey them, he puts you in jail. It’s...like a terrible box!”

The idea of a ghost jail was...bizarre to her. The ghosts all seemed to do whatever they wanted to do, with no one to control them. If there had been a Warden, she would have thought that he was keeping them out of the human world. Or at the very least raging havoc on the humans that didn’t really do anything to them. Dessire especially, all she did was cause distress everywhere.

“You’re...scared of him?” Jazz only seen the Box Ghost get afraid of people who were actually in his face. He was overconfident nearly constantly, when talking about Skulker he just downplayed how he wasn’t that scary. Even with her, he tend to act like he wasn’t afraid of her until she did something that actually freaked him out.

His eyes begin to dart again, like he was afraid that Walker would appear from nowhere and attack both of them, “Everyone is! THey fear him! He puts bounties out on the ghosts that escape, he has a whole prison full and a dog that can sniff out anything!”

 

Jazz bit her lip, twisting and untwisting her hair as she tried to think through what he was telling her, “Is that why you prefer to stay in the human world? So he doesn’t catch you?” It was starting to make some more sense, the very idea that the Ghost Zone wasn’t safe for the residents. No wonder she was constantly having to send them back.

Even with her parents and herself, it seemed like the human world was safer than their very home. “Why didn’t you tell me before this?”

For a moment it seemed like he might not reply to her questions, but finally he started talking about, “It’s not really the business of anyone outside the Ghost Zone, you might be the Halfa but even you can’t take down the Warden. Don’t you think we’ve tried?”

She stood up, put her foot down with a smack against the air, “I’m not about to let this go! I’ve be doing good work helping out a lot of you ghosts, there’s no reason that I should have to let you guys get bullied by some damn Warden!”

“Jasmine…”

*

A few days later, a letter floated on to Walker’s desk, a J combined with a P scratched into the surface of the envelope in blue ink. He picked up the envelope, turning it over in his pants as he tried to figure out just why it had been sent to him.

Dragging a finger over the fold, the green fire burnt through the paper. He slipped the letter out, unfolding it against his desk. The paper was slightly tinged with green, clearly stating that it was some kind of ghost paper. The writing on the inside was the same colour as the ink on the outside.

‘Dear Mister Warden,  
I’ve recently become aware that you’re terrorizing the residents of the Ghost Zone and scaring them into my territory. I think it’s disgusting that you find that you’re in control of the whole Zone. The Ghosts don’t deserve to be treated in the way that you’ve been treating them. I am in charge of not only the Fenton Ghost Portal but as well the human world. I have decided that I’m no longer going to allow you to do what you’ve been doing. I will be coming for you. Please prepare yourself.  
Yours,  
Jazz Fenton’

Walker stared at the letter, his finger tracing over the name on the bottom of the paper. The Ghost Girl, apparently someone had finally decided to inform her of his existence. He had been waiting for the chance to actually encounter her, and it seemed that he might be getting chance. Walker welcomed the chance to face off against her, he was going to win but she would be an addition to his jail that he was interested in having.

“I’d like to see you try Little Girl, I’d really like to see you try”, he drawled, folding the letter back up and putting it into his desk. He pressed a button on his phone, “We’re gonna be havin’ a visitor, I want you to get prepared for her please”

He crossed his hands across his stomach, leaning back in his chair with a creak. There would be a few minutes to think about what he was going to throw at her. Just a few minutes.

*

“You sent him a letter?” Sam crossed her legs, looking at the redhead across from her, “A letter. You sent a ghost a letter. How did you even…”

“My parents invented ghost paper”, Jazz admitted, flidding with a piece that she had taken, “It’s...really weird”, She dropped the paper, as she did it fell into the shape of a person under a sheet, “It seemed to work though, the Box Ghost said that they’re getting started for a war. Not that I’m really going to fight, but he doesn’t know that”

Sam grasped the paper, watching as it spread itself out into a sheet again, “What are you going to do? Just talk him to death? I mean it could work, it seems to have worked with other ghosts. But I mean you haven’t seen this guy like ever”

Jazz shrugged, twisting her hair around her finger, her nervous tick as it was, “It’ll work or I’ll kick his ass, that’s just what it comes down to right? What he’s doing to the ghosts isn’t fair and it clearly isn’t working. They need like...a social worker or something. He’s working on a flawed idea, you see that right?”

“Jazz...even I know I say we have to at least try and help the ghosts but this is...different. You’re trying to apply the living standards to the dead. It takes a lot more to deal with dead people I would think then it does with living people”

“So what?” she got to her feet, crossing her arms over her chest, “I should just leave them to rot in prison because someone with a bit too much power says they did something wrong? According to the Box Ghost the sentences can be for life. They can’t be all bad, they need a chance to live their unlife and he’s just not giving it to them!”

Her chest was heaving now, like she had been running a mile rather than just talking about something so passionately, “And if you can’t understand that...then I just don’t need your help this time”, Jazz whispered.

“Jazz…”, Sam reached for her friend, only for Jazz to turn away, refusing to look the other girl in the eyes, “...Fine. Just don’t get yourself killed…”, with that she left Jazz alone, standing in her room.

For a moment Jazz wondered if maybe she was doing the right thing, but she had to. She had to help the Ghosts. It wasn’t fair.

She had to. Didn’t she?


End file.
